


Fusion

by GlowwormiK



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steven Universe Fusion, F/M, Gen, Haggar experimenting, Inspired by Steven Universe, Lotor POV, Post-Season 5, Zargar - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 12:37:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14852897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlowwormiK/pseuds/GlowwormiK
Summary: Lotor and Allura find out that Haggar is once again using an abandoned base for her experiments. Unfortunately, they have to witness one of them end in an in unexpected result.Zargar fusion that has been haunting me since I watched the very first episode of the show.





	1. Chapter 1

Lotor and Allura sank behind the storage crates, and just in time: Haggar and the druids entered almost immediately after they managed to hide themselves, hardly giving them time to look around. Both Alteans landed in this predicament after Lotor found out that his father’s body disappeared without trace from its grave, and did research that lead both of them to this half-forgotten base on the edge of the galaxy. As it turned out, the base was being used again lately, so now they got themselves cornered here, unable to even contact their friends and call for help.

 

The room where they hid was, in fact, a hall: huge and with high ceilings, and almost empty, save for a strange machine in a ritual circle that resembled an abstractly drawn flower. A sort of a shower was positioned in the middle of the room, connected to a huge tank filled with purple quintessence. Where the shower head was pointing at, there was a shallow hole filled with water, much like in Haggar’s lair in the main base that they searched through two movements ago. The witch entered, followed by the druids, and Allura bowed her head even lower to avoid being noticed. The menacing servants carried inside a long box, covered with glowing symbols, and put it under the “shower”.

 

“Leave us,” Haggar said, not looking at them. The druids bowed and exited.

 

“Us?” Lotor whispered into Allura’s ear. The princess just shook her head and pressed her finger to her lips.

 

Haggar could not have referred to them, though: oblivious to any enemy presence, she went over to the terminal, entered several symbols, and Lotor and Allura heard engines turning on. Several ticks later, the whole room was filled with low buzzing of invisible machinery and ticking of a giant clock. The quintessence in the tank was now being constantly stirred and bubbling. Haggar opened the ornamented box, and Allura and Lotor saw that this was a coffin, containing Zarkon’s body. Haggar pulled him out without much difficulty, despite the huge body size difference, and put him in the water-filled hole; then she rolled the box aside. Zarkon was taken out of his life-sustaining armor but still clothed in a body-suit, so that almost whole his skin was still covered, even if by cloth rather than metal. Without his helmet crown, without the haughty grimace, his face looked suddenly younger and calm. Amazingly, no signs of decay were visible on the open parts of the Galran emperor’s body, even though it has been almost a phoeb after died. When Haggar put him down, Zarkon’s head turned and now his face was looking at Lotor, even though the purple eyes were closed. The galran prince shivered and exhaled, but Allura caught his hand and squeezed it to remind him of cautiousness. Luckily, Haggar seemed too deep in her own thoughts to hear the quiet noise Lotor made. She circled around the shower, straightened Zarkon’s body and turned his head so that he would look up, right into her face. It seemed to Allura that her hand twitched slightly and stayed on his cheek for longer than it was absolutely necessary, but maybe it was just an illusion. Haggar looked up, checking the “shower head” above herself, then exhaled and pressed her hands to fists. It seemed like has prepared everything, it was time to begin the ritual.

 

The witch slid her hood down, revealing her dry, tangled white hair, pulled the hem of her dress up and stepped over Zarkon, sitting down on his lower stomach as if to ride him, facing him. She took his hands and put them on the inner sides of her thighs,  tucking the thumbs under herself to prevent the heavy palms from sliding down. Each Zarkon’s palm was big enough to encircle her leg with two fingers, and the witch seemed especially tiny now that she was so close to her deceased emperor, almost like a child near an adult; especially emaciated and hunched. But neither weak nor broken: Haggar actively searched for an optimal position, she wiggled her hips slightly, finding a more comfortable stance, moved lower, now sitting on Zarkon’s hips, raised her head to check that the “shower head” was right above her. Then she bent over and put her one palm on Zarkon’s face and circled another on his chest tenderly, exhaling. Although she was still fully clothed and Zarkon’s body was covered with the body suit, the whole scene had a distinct indecent flair to it. It was just an imitation, but  an imitation of something too personal, and something too dangerous to be watched. Both Lotor and Allura felt uneasy, not looking at each other, as the clock started beeping, signalling the last remaining seconds until something inevitable would happen. Haggar was aware of what she was doing, as a faint shade of red touched her cheeks. With the last beep, she leaned forward sharply and kissed Zarkon’s cold, gray, pressed together lips, cupping his face with her both hands. At the same time, the stirring in the quintessence tank turned into boiling, the alarm went off and a wave of steaming hot thick liquid poured on Haggar and Zarkon from the “shower”. The witch uttered a shriek of pain and straightened herself, trying to escape the burning liquid. All the lines in the ritual circle lit up, shooting rays of light that crossed each other and formed a cage of light around both villains. The witches cry of pain tore Allura and Lotor’s ears, the heat from quintessence and the stench of burned flesh reached them, making them gasp and recoil. The liquid flowed slowly, bubbling, covering Haggar from head to toe and flowing further on Zarkon’s dead body, sizzling at the contact with water.

 

The witch screeched for a couple of ticks, throwing her head back in pain, scratching her face in an instinctive attempt to remove the burning liquid, then she went silent and fell forward on Zarkon’s chest. The boiling quintessence kept pouring onto them and lights gew only brighter as Allura and Lotor were watching, frozen with shock and disgust. For some reason, the otherwise volatile quintessence did not flow or evaporate, but gathered in a heap, covering the outlines of the bodies on the floor. Finally, the tank emptied itself, the boiling quintessence stopped pouring out of the shower and the lights went off. Now, the whole ritual circle was covered by a shaky, gelatinous purple mass, so that neither of the villains was visible. The jellylike heap slowly cooled off, while Allura watched it with her mouth open. Lotor was the first to react.

 

“I hope they are dead!” he exclaimed, jumping up and attempting to approach the quintessence heap, but Allura caught his wrist.

 

“Wait!” she whispered. “Look!”

 

Lotor looked where she was pointing and gasped: the quintessence heap just wiggled once and twice. As incredible it was for anyone to survive the molten lava shower, the prince ducked and hid behind the crates once again, watching the heap pulsate. The quintessence was solidifying quickly and the pulsating became more and more visible. The heap wiggled again and again.

 

“How can it be? Has Haggar survived?” Lotor asked in disbelief, but Allura had no time to answer.

 

The quintessence heap wiggled one last time, lit up from the inside and exploded without a sound. Lotor and Allura fell on their stomach to avoid getting hit by its pieces. It was not until after several ticks that they dared to look up again.

 

The walls and the floor was covered with blots of quintessence, but where the heap was earlier, now was a… living being. Lotor was not  entirely sure what it was, because it was covered with quintessence almost completely, lying motionless on the floor, but it was clearly anthropomorphically built, with two legs and a body and a head, it’s face currently turned away from the crates. What amazed the galran prince was the size of it: it was much bigger than even Zarkon. If it got up, it would be at least twenty feet tall.

 

“Is that...” Lotor whispered. “Is that… the witch? What happened?”

 

The creature inhaled sharply, raising its head and uttered a weak mewl. It bent its legs, but only slightly, as if not entirely able to control its body, and tried to raise itself, leaning on an elbow. Quintessence was still covering it head to toe, to the extent that it was impossible to tell its gender or skin colour. Too weak to stand up, it groped blindly in front of itself, then turned on the side and started wiping the quintessence from is face. Its movements were slow, insecure, like those of an infant, its hands were shaking violently. Finally, it managed to wipe off enough of the sticky purple substance that the quintessence turned into, and opened its eyes. Its burning purple eyes.

 

Lotor suffocated with shock, opening and closing his mouth, while the creature… no, giant Zarkon slowly wiggled in the remainders of quintessence. And yet it was not entirely him, something has changed, something else than only the body size, something that made whoever was lying in the middle of the room another being than the twice dead galran emperor. The substance started to liquify again and was sliding down the strange creature faster and faster. It stared blankly in front of itself, obviously not entirely conscious yet. Now, the outlines of its body became more visible: it was tall but lean, nothing like Zarkon’s massive frame, with long thin legs, but not quite as long as galran limbs. It had broad male shoulders and muscular arms, but something about it was off, so that Lotor could not quite tell its gender. Weirdly, it was clothed - it was impossible to tell what it was wearing on its body because of quintessence covering it, but its feet, visible from under the pile of quintessence, were covered with short soft boots. Lotor shortly wondered how if could happen that the giant had clothes on, but he had no time to think it over properly.

 

The creature finally managed to push itself into a sitting position, turned its head to and fro, stretched its arms in front of itself, watching the backsides of its huge clawed hands numbly, then slowly slid one palm on its head, wiping a wave of quintessence off, and scratched its face to remove another clot of it that stuck to its cheek. Puzzled Lotor found out that the creature’s head, with his father’s signature bone crest on the top, also had white hair on both sides of it, now smeared with quintessence, falling down to the shoulders around its pointy ears and disappearing the purple jelly still covering its shoulders. Its face, brown instead of bluish-gray like Zarkon’s, broad and with a familiar square jaw, had a thin, long sharp nose, thin white altean eyebrows over the purple galran eyes and two symmetrical horizontal scars on its cheeks. It was Zarkon’s face and at the same time, Haggar’s. The similarity was not just in the features, but also in the expression, neither Zarkon’s obstinate frown nor Haggar’s cold face, but something in-between.

 

The creature blinked absently, slid its fingers along a strand of hair, looked down at it and uttered a muffled yelp of astonishment. For some reason, its own hair shocked it so much that it gasped, twitched, sliding on the quintessence, and almost fell on its back, throwing its hands in the air helplessly. Its first pair of arms, as it turned out, because the moment when the creature lost its balance, a second pair of arms emerged from the heap of gelatinous mass still covering it somewhere around its waist and leaned on the floor to support the body. The creature shrieked once again, jerking and trying to straighten itself while sliding on the quintessence puddle. It stretched its lower arms and watched them as if it saw a snake. The second set of arms seemed weaker, the creature could hardy use them properly for longer than several seconds, so very soon they fell down in the creature’s lap, limp and useless. Still visibly shocked, the giant started rubbing its cheeks with its upper fists violently, and, to his horror, Lotor found out that the horizontal scars he noticed earlier were not scars at all, but a second pair of eyes! The creature opened the lower eyes  - these ones were different from upper ones, just like with arms. Rounder, a softer oval in comparison to Zarkon’s, eyeballs white, with light hazel irises. The creature now looked at the world with the eyes of the altean alchemist Honerva, those that did not open for millennia.

 

The new eyes looked to the sides and made the first ones unfocus, too, but the creature quickly regained itself, concentrating its vision in front of itself. Now, the weird being watched its four palms with its four eyes. The second pair of arms was much thinner that the first one, without much muscle and with smaller, softer palms, nails instead of claws. These were unmistakably altean arms, and female ones. The creature twitched to look at the lower part of its body, still covered with quintessence, but calmed down a little upon seeing only two feet.

 

“What the..” the creature murmured, its voice hoarse and breaking. “Hagg… Hon… What… You’re alive! I… You... I am alive? It worked! What worked? What is happening?”

 

The creature was not just talking to itself, it seemed like two people were speaking from one body between ragged inhales. The creature tried to get up again but failed once more, its body rigid, limbs moving without proper synchronization, fingers on all four palms twitching erratically.

 

“It shouldn’t have been like that...” the creature exhaled, and although its voice remained the same, its tone changed so much that it seemed like completely different person talking.  “Something went wrong, something distorted the flow...”

 

The creature kept trying to get up but could not, its whole body shaking and arms moving without proper coordination, so it sank back to the floor.

 

“Where are you? Why can I not see you? What happened to your body? My ritual...” the creature whispered under its breath, looked around the room, its eyes unfocused again, but it had no time to answer this thought properly. Lotor, who now shook the paralysis off himself, dashed forward, jumping over the crates and pulling his sword out.

 

“You shall not live again,” he roared. The creature shrieked, not having expected an attack, winced and waved one of its lower hands clumsily, like a toddler trying to scare away a pesky bug rather than an adult protecting themselves in battle. It did not stand a chance, of course, weak and disoriented, against Lotor’s skill. The prince plunged his blade into the stomach of the creature that was still half-sprawled on the floor, but the sword went through the flesh as if through thin air. The prince froze, not having expected this, then slowly raised his head to look the creature in the face. The four eyes were staring back at him in the same amazement that he felt, then the upper ones narrowed dangerously.

 

Finally, the weird being reacted properly. It frowned, closing its lower eyes, smashed Lotor with one of Zarkon’s fists and threw him against the wall with the next movement if its palm. The force of the impact was so great that the prince crashed into the wall like a cannonball and sank down to the floor, unconscious. The wall cracked where he hit it.

 

“You shall not harm her!” the giant snarled, but stopped abruptly and looked down at its four hands again. “You… shall not harm… me?”

 

Despite the danger, Allura also jumped up and rushed towards Lotor, pulling her bayard out to protect him, but the creature paid no attention to its surroundings anymore.

 

“Quintessence!” it exclaimed, panting, its face flushed with joy. “A body made of quintessence! Millennia of research - and a success when I least expected it! Incredible!”

 

Something changed, the creature uttered a strange hiccup, shivered, put its face in its lower hands and started rocking side to side, mumbling pieces of sentences that made no sense.

 

“I lost the fight! Heated quintessence… Irreparable damage… What a shame! It was the only way! Bloody vermin… Oriande… Empire… time... running short... by mistake! what necessity...”

 

The mumbling grew quieter and quieter, until it stopped completely, the creature’s breath became slower and more even now. Now it did not rock anymore, but bent further forward, curling into a ball, its forehead now touching its knees and froze like that.  Lotor was still unconscious, so Allura turned towards the creature. The altean princess did not know what to do: the creature was obviously too much for her to handle alone, even taking in account its distressed state, and with the rest of the team on the other side of the universe, she could only wait until Lotor wakes up. The creature shifted again, but now its movements were not erratic and discoordinated anymore. It straightened itself, still ignoring Allura’s presence in the room and the unconscious Lotor, slid its bigger clawed palms along its hair again and started giggling uncontrollably, its smaller hands still touching its face. Then it inhaled, stretched all four arms out and looked up.

 

“Mistake, ha!” it exclaimed happily, throwing its head back. “I wish I made more mistakes like this one! Would be easier on my finances!”

 

It got on all fours and crawled towards the pult. There, it lay down on its stomach and started swiping on the screen with its altean fingers, using the bigger palms to support its head.

 

“The temperature was fine, maybe wrong stance… no, also fine… Positioning? No... But what could have distorted the flow like that? There was a disturbance somewhere, or were my calculations off? Nah, I am so good at it, no way...”

 

The creature giggled fondly at itself, ran a clawed index finger along its neck and started winding a strand of hair onto it. This was too much for Allura, so she decided to act, even though Lotor still showed no signs of consciousness and the way to the door was blocked by the creature.

 

“So you became Haggar’s ultimate puppet, didn’t you, Zarkon? Not even a separate person anymore?” the princess snapped, and the creature looked down at her, as if seeing her for the first time.

 

“What are _you_ doing here? I don't recall bringing you here before the experiment. Zarkon… no... What am I?” it asked itself, looking somewhere behind Allura’s shoulder, and went silent for some time again. It seemed so caught up in whatever inner dialogue it was having that the altean princess dared to shake Lotor’s body to wake him up, but all was in vain. The creature looked back at Allura.

 

“I am Zarkon, yes, and I am Honerva,” it said slowly. “but I am more than just the two of them… I am an experience, and I will make sure I am a successful one.”

 

It easily grabbed both Lotor and Allura with a single clawed palm, sat down cross-legged and brought them closer to its huge face. Now, all four eyes were studying Allura’s face, making her feel like an insect pinned on a laboratory table.

 

“You were the source of disturbance that broke my ritual that should have revived me!” he monster hissed, squeezing Allura so that she could hardly breathe. “You, an altean alchemist, you distorted the flow of quintessence! I guess I should thank you for that, but you will not like the way I will do it.”

 

The creature smiled, its mouth too broad for its face and full of sharp pointy teeth, so that it looked like a happy piranha now.

 

“You made a big mistake coming here, princess,” the creature went on and already swung its hand to throw Allura against the wall the same way it did with Lotor, but the princess was not going to give up that easily. She activated the bayard in her hand and waved the magic whip, aiming for the creature’s eyes.The smaller palm caught the whip with ease and winded the glowing string onto its finger as if it was a usual rope. The monster laughed, pulling the bayard out of Allura’s hands. It seemed tiny in the monster’s huge palms, and also amazingly harmless. The creature turned the magical weapon to and fro, then dropped it and sighed.

 

“Ah, the bayards. So much time did I spend looking for them, and now that I have it, I don’t need it anymore. Druids!”

 

When the creature raised its voice, it seemed to fill the entire hall like the sound of battle horn, but it stayed low, never breaking into a yell. A druid entered hastily but froze at the sight of the giant.

 

“High Priestess...” he gasped. His reaction amazed Allura - the druid saw Haggar in the giant at first, not Zarkon, like the princess did. It seemed like the creature reminded people of the part that they knew better.

 

“Get the girl into a cell,” the creature ordered. “As for Lotor, I will talk with him some more.”

 

“No!” Allura exclaimed in desperation, but the strong hand put her down and she felt shackles being closed on her wrists. The last thing she saw before the door closed behind her was Lotor’s head, hanging down helplessly, silver hair covering his face.


	2. Chapter 2

When Lotor woke up, he could not understand where he was. Everything was blurry in front of his eyes and his head was hurting so bad that he bit his lip to stop himself from whining. What happened? The events of the last day were hazy in his mind. The galran prince half-opened his eyes, careful to avoid showing his consciousness. At first, he thought he was alone, but then he noticed the huge figure in the opposite side of the room, sitting with its back towards him. He remembered the terrible ritual and the strange creature that was born out of it, neither Haggar nor Zarkon, and yet both of them at once.

 

Lotor sat down and carefully felt his skull and neck. Nothing seemed to be broken, but he found a huge painful bump at the side of his head where he hit the wall. He still felt nauseous, but at least no bones hurt actively. He looked around himself: it was the same hall where the ritual took place, but the shower machine was taken out and the rest of quintessence cleaned. Now there were almost no other furniture except for an info terminal near which the giant was sitting. Its control panel was torn off, wires pulled out and thrown to the floor in disarray. The giant was still turned with its back to Lotor, motionless, humming something under its nose. There was not much to be done, so the prince stood up, waited for a couple of ticks for dizziness to lessen and made a couple of steps towards the creature. His feet hitting the metal floor produced a loud noise yet the giant did not react, but only after going around it, Lotor understood why.

 

The intimidating quintessence giant was braiding its hair with three hands of four, in front of a full-body mirror that looked like a pocket one in its fourth hand, murmuring non-stop, a content smile on its face. It already finished the left part of its head, having created a dozen braids running in parallel with its head crest and then falling down on the shoulder and was now in the middle of doing the same thing with the other half. Lotor seemed to interest it not more than a mosquito.

 

“Why are you losing your time on this?”  The prince asked, looking up into the giant’s face despite the intense pain in the back of his head at the movement. The giant sighed, frowned and Lotor suddenly noticed how ugly, unnatural Honerva’s thin, sharp facial features looked on Zarkon’s square face.

 

“Because I always wanted to do it and hardly ever was in a proper mood? I never had hair myself and I would never let myself braid mine… I wanted to do something about that bun of mine from the first day I saw it, but no-o-o! I have too much to do Zarkon; it’s not the right time, Zarkon… The attention was flattering, though, I must admit...”

 

The creature’s giggling, its thoughts jumping and its manner of referring to both Honerva and Zarkon as “me” made Lotor’s nausea return, as well as the feeling that it was still talking to itself exclusively. Lotor’s questions only gave its endless internal dialogue a kick to a new direction, and what the prince saw and heard was nothing but an echo, a distorted glimpse into what was happening in the creature’s mind. Lotor knew that if he wanted to find something out, he would have to bring the creature out of this state of blissful self-concentration.

 

“You had no hair but you wanted to braid it?” he asked, making the giant roll its eyes.

 

“Yes,” it answered casually. “But I can refer to myself by names if your tiny brain cannot process it.”

 

“Are you a female or a male? And what will you be calling yourself now?” Lotor asked carefully.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” the creature answered. “What matters is what is better to do with you.”

 

“Can’t make up your mind?” Lotor allowed sarcasm to sound in his voice. The giant stopped braiding and shot him a sideways glance from it’s left Honerva’s eye, its eyes now seemingly being able to look into different directions without making the creature uncomfortable.

 

“You are my son after all… But also my greatest failure! Your altean blood makes you too weak to...”

 

“My altean heritage is my greatest strength!” Lotor snapped. “And you are half-altean now, too, in case you didn’t realize!”

 

The creature laughed quietly, its fingers continuing the braid once again.

 

“You think I am just Zarkon plus Honerva, a puppet body controlled by two masters, but you are so very wrong: I am more than just the sum of my parts. You asked me about my name to find out who was in charge in my conscience, this suggests that you think there are two people there, fighting for control. But I am the only one, Lotor. There is no Honerva and no Zarkon anymore. There is me, I am whole and I am neither galra nor altean, and neither female nor male. I am above these pathetic terms.”

 

“You think you are so perfect, inventing fancy words to  describe yourself,” Lotor hissed. “But the truth is that you are a sum of Zarkon and Haggar; and I see that you inherited their double bloated ego! You empire started shaking even when both your parts were alive and after Zarkon’s death it crumbled within days!”

 

“I _am_ perfect and I am beyond happy to exist. Tell me, Lotor,” the creature stopped braiding and bent towards the prince, leaning Honerva’s elbow on one knee. “If you value your altean heritage so much, then how come only Allura was deemed worthy by the Oriande? Why did she return victorious while you trailed back, your tail between your legs, forever doomed to be just one of her servants? How does it feel, seeing her having gained the knowledge and knowing that you ultimately failed, forever, without replay and return?”

 

Lotor opened and closed his mouth, suffocating with rage and humiliation, as the giant smiled contently at his reaction and went back to braiding its hair. Lotor did not have to get used to his father’s violence and the witches icy indifference, but this kind of sadistic joy threw him off balance.

 

“This was… this was your heritage! You… I... your call! Victory or death!” he even started stuttering with unreleased anger. The giant giggled and smiled at its reflection fondly, brushing one of its clawed fingers along its cheekbone shortly.

 

“You are so ready to blame someone for your own mistakes… It is a wonderful call; that of a true man, a conqueror! The problem with you that you never were and never will be a true man. There will be no victory for you, only death.”

 

Lotor looked around helplessly, feeling tears that he had not cried for centuries burn his eyes once again. He managed to build psychic defences against his father’s influence, but now the creature breached them effortlessly. The mockery made Lotor forget about humility he learned in such a hard way and let old toxic pride resurface, but the Prince quickly recollected himself.

 

“You are right,” Lotor admitted. “It was my mistake. My mistake of allowing your poisonous ideas infiltrate my personality so deep that I reacted to it when the guardian beast surprised me. It is better that I didn’t get that knowledge: who knows where my unresolved issues would have led me, a dangerous tool may not land in such unstable hands. And I am not jealous of Allura for getting the knowledge, I will gladly support her and stand at her side!”

 

“As I said, weak,” the giant said reproachfully, securing the last braid and putting down the mirror. “Amazing how I could have given life to such a petty creature. And I was right to support Sendak instead of you after I died: he would have been a better emperor than you, even though he is less than nothing compared to me. It is sad to admit, but I really have no use for you anymore, my son.”

 

“You failed at the Oriande, too!” Lotor exclaimed, rage clouding his mind. “The stone was in your lair, but you didn't even find the entrance! You were not deemed worthy to even try!”

 

“Haggar failed, my poor girl, all alone and desperate,” the giant said, its face grew absent. “She needed me to succeed. She should have asked - I would have found the entrance for her, but she decided I would not be useful to her in that aspect and went on trying on her own. Now, she will never be alone anymore…”

 

“Everything both your parts did was a failure!” Lotor was beyond fearing for his life now. “You betrayed your paladin friends and failed to save your wife! You destroyed your planet and messed up your people to become immoral bloodthirsty maniacs! You both turned yourselves into quintessence-hungry monsters but never achieved a tenth of what ancient altean alchemists could do! You lost to Voltron because of you listened to your dumb pride and let some lowly commander almost execute a coup-d'etat mere days after your almighty husband was incapacitated! She was socially deaf, he conceited and cruel - and you are both, congratulations! You two brought the universe nothing but damage and sorrow, it would be better for everyone if you never even existed!”

 

Lotor stopped, panting with rage. The giant smiled at him from above with Haggar’s usual narrow wicked smile, then took him by the collar with two fingers and raised him towards its face. The four huge eyes stared at Lotor with cold interest, the same way a scientist stares at the frog, pinned open at him laboratory table.

 

“You think you can offend me with your petty lies? You think I care about anything that comes out of a mouth of a broken traitor? How low must one fall to cooperate with the enemies of your kind... What else do you have to say before I execute you, Lotor? What other last words will you produce?”

 

“Oh, I have plenty!” Lotor wiggled in the creature’s merciless grip. “I won’t say that my friends will come for me  and you will be your own demise - you know that yourself even if you choose not to believe it. I will tell you one thing: your own Lion preferred a stranger human to you and attacked you at his command! Because anyone is better than you, literally anyone is an improvement in comparison...”

 

The Lotor could not finish, because the giant winced, frowned and released its grip. Lotor fell down, the force of landing hit all the air out of his lungs and made his head explode with pain once more, but he still managed to notice a shadow of rage on the giant’s face. No matter in what form, Lotor realized with malicious joy,  Zarkon would never stop missing the power of his lion.

 

“Take him!” the giant said, standing up to its whole height, its head now almost touching the ceiling. “The execution happens at dawn.”

 

The time in the prison cell seemed to have stopped. First, Allura sat down at the floor, waiting. Then, unable to suppress her anxiety, she started pacing to and fro in the tiny room. Then she carefully tapped the walls in search of possible escape. Then she shouted for help until  her voice became hoarse. Finally, she sank down near the door and pressed her ear to the door, listening carefully. Nothing. There were no cavities in the walls and the door muffled all sounds, if there were any. The Altean princess sat down at the floor and sighed: there was no way of escaping and she would have to wait for the other Paladins to free her. She knew her friends would come after her, because the first thing she did with her newly acquired alchemist knowledge was a set of necklaces for every member of the team that were connected to each other. This way, none of them could ever be lost again. By the time two guards came to take her, she was so overwrought that she was almost happy for any kind of change. They dragged her to what seemed to be the main control room of the base. The giant was already there, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, and so was Lotor, huge cuffs on his wrists, looking as if he was about to faint with pain, the bump on his head swollen. The giant threw Allura a sideways glance but otherwise did not react to her presence.

 

“Are you alright?” the princess whispered quietly when the guards pushed her on the floor near Lotor and the prince nodded, but said nothing. Both of them sat like that, silent, watching the giant swipe and type at the info terminal and sometimes give short orders to the galra. The creature seemed to have become ultimately comfortable in its body, all signs of insecurity and conflict of two consciousnesses gone. Now it was acting with otherworldly grace, all four of its hands busy, every movement smooth and effective like that of a predatory animal. The roar of approaching lions felt like a rumble in the back of her mind. Allura gasped happily, raising her head up, but, to her amazement, so did the creature.

 

“Sire,” the commander addressed the creature with Zarkon’s title, looking at his monitor. “The lions have appeared out of a wormhole, but they are not yet within the reach of the base’s weapons.”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” the creature said, getting on it’s all fours again, since the ceiling in the control room was by far not high enough for it to stand properly. “Don’t engage. Keep the hailing frequency open and wait for my orders.”

 

“Sire, the communicator...” the commander started, but the creature stopped paying him any attention. It crawled towards the thick wall of the base, stretched its altean hands in front of itself, inhaled and closed its eyes. The smaller altean palms started glowing as it pressed them to the wall, and, to Allura’s amazement, the creature’s hands started sinking in the wall, phasing through it!  The giant inhaled again and dove its head through the metal wall, too. It wiggled a couple of ticks, unable to relax its shoulders and upper set of arms to get through, but eventually landed completely on the other side. The Galra and druids alike, not yet accustomed to their leader's newly acquired supernatural capabilities, gasped quietly.

 

Through the big windows, Allura and Lotor watched the giant stand up and stretch itself to full height, then pace to and fro in front of the base. Tiny in comparison to the dark-brown hills surrounding the base, the creature stopped seeming huge or menacing.

 

“The paladins will defeat them,” Allura whispered with a surge of hope, but Lotor just shook his head dully.

 

“Quintessence body,” he murmured. “They can use it the way they see fit. We don’t know the full extent of their abilities yet, they don’t even know it themselves...”

 

The four lions of Voltron appeared in the sky, followed by the castle ship. They failed to find a way to pilot the blue lion without me, Allura thought both with fear and unexpected joy at the same time. Huge creatures did not lose time with preparations. The yellow lion immediately formed the back cannon and fired, aiming at the creature, but the quintessence fusion was faster. It dashed to the side, dodged the second attack and spinned around the next hill.

 

“Not so confident now, are you?” Allura whispered in anticipation, but Lotor only shook his head again.

 

“They need to go, they are in danger,” he murmured, his head bowing forward more and more. The prince was obviously feeling worse with every minute: Allura shot him a worried glance, but was unable to help in any way without attracting the attention of their guards.

 

Meanwhile, Black and Red Lions landed in order to be able to attack the creature with their mouth swords. The fusion reappeared at the plain in front of the base again. It seemed to be able to move very quickly the same way Haggar could, teleporting itself on short distances and leaving clouds of purple smoke behind itself. Another cloud, and it was standing right under the Black’s belly, not scared or taken aback in any way. Seeing it move so decisively, Allura felt a faint cold touch of fear in her heart, but she quickly chased away the treacherous thought. The quintessence fusion placed all its four palms on the Lion’s foot. Paladins’ laughter over the communication channels was intercepted also in the base.

 

“What, you want to hold us back with your bare hands?” Lance huffed.

 

Black Lion bent its head to fire under itself, but the creature had something else in mind. Its palms glowed up once more, and so did its all four eyes. The paladins gasped, Pidge swore something unintelligible.

 

“This is your end, Champion” the creature said simply. The glowing quickly spread over its body, now immaterial wind was casting its braids to and fro on its shoulders. The Black Lion shot from its mouth and so did Red, but the shots did the creature no damage, simply phasing through its body.

 

“Lance, fly up! Fire thrusters!” Shiro snapped and started his own engine, but it shut off the second it was turned on. The Lion shook its huge head and shivered, as if torn apart. The creature uttered a cry of pain, too, as the wills of two paladins fought for the control of the huge beast. Now the fusion creature was glowing whole, resembling a pillar of white fire, and something started happening with the legs of the Lion. All colours went duller, cracks covered the casing.

 

“What is happening?!” Lance gasped, and both he and Pidge sored their Lions forward to attack physically.

 

“Pull back!” Shiro moaned. “Escape! Gain height at all cost!”

 

“What is happening?” Allura exclaimed, plastered on the window. The guards were also too caught up watching the fight to pull her back.

 

The cracks on the casing of the Black Lion quickly ran further, the legs were now so covered by them that they seemed grey instead of white. The Lion made one more attempt to escape, firing all engines, but the creature was holding tight.

 

“You… shall… return... what is mine!”

 

Obviously, Zarkon has taken over in the creature’s conscience. With each second, the quintessence giant grew stronger and brighter and taller while the Black Lion lost its light and power. The castle ship fired at it once and twice, but the energy blasts simply disappeared in the glowing that surrounded the creature, and other Lions were thrown away every time they tried to approach..

 

“No!” Allura cried out, wiggling in the chains helplessly. “No! Shiro!"

 

And then it was over. The creature uttered the last triumphant roar and the paladins gasped, when the Black Lion exploded. The shock wave broke the windows in the base and made everyone fall on the floor. When Allura managed to clear her eyes and cough the dust out of her lungs, she jumped up, trying to see if any of the lions survived. Where Black stood mere minutes ago was now a huge crater filled with thick black ashes. There was no sight of it or the creature: only Red and Green Lion, lying motionlessly on the plain.

 

“Shiro?” Allura asked weakly.

 

“Apprehend them!” the commander barked, and a couple of surviving thugs rushed out to get Shiro and the others. The heap of dust in the crater wiggled and the creature crawled out, completely covered in ashes, its face black with dirt. It was too weak to stand properly, so it made a couple of steps to the side and sank to its knees. In shock, Allura saw tears run down its cheeks and leave light traces on its face.

 

“No,” the creature moaned, sinking its hands in the ashes helplessly. “No, not Black, no, it wasn’t supposed to be like that…”

 

Coran saved them. The creature was completely devastated by the loss of the Black Lion and unresponsive; and the few troops present at the base were also unable to provide any proper resistance. A few blasts and a rescue pod were enough: Coran managed to gather the remnants of the defeated Voltron squad. At the castle ship, they wormholed away using the advantage of surprise, put unresponsive Lotor into a healing pod and gathered on the bridge. Shiro was a mess, it hurt Allura to look at all of them, devastated by their loss, discouraged, pained and ashamed of their defeat.

 

“It was a suicide!” Shiro moaned, sinking his face in his hands. “It was a suicide! Whoever it was, they were stronger than me, they were about to win, when Black decided to rather die than belong to Zarkon again! I felt it, it said goodbye to me when I was unable to protect it! It died to save me, to save all of us from being enslaved by Zarkon like it used to be!”

 

Seeing him so broken, having lost his usual concentrated, calm attitude hurt the Paladins even more than the loss of the Lion.

 

“Until we figure this out, we need to rest,”   Coran said. “Let us meet back in a varga.”

 

“Princess, you need to take rest, too,” Coran said, but Allura only smiled weakly.

 

“I will,” she promised, “right after I check up on Lotor.”

 

The galran prince has already regained his consciousness and was waiting to be let out of the healing pod. Allura told him the events of the battle with the Black Lion and their flight from the base. Lotor’s face grew visibly darker.

 

“Yes, this is a great loss, my condolences, princess,” he said. “But what we need to concentrate on is our future steps. We simply have no time to grieve.”

 

“We have to stay focused,” Lotor said when everyone was gathered on the bridge once again. Shiro was crouched on the sofa, Hunk and Lance sitting at his sides, both looking miserable and guilty as if it was their fault that the quintessence fusion managed to destroy the Lion.

 

“Focus on what?” Pidge snapped. “We are done for! There is no Voltron without its head! Whatever that creature was, Haggar created something beyond powerful, and we have nothing to oppose them now that Voltron… Voltron is...”

 

Her voice cracked, but everyone knew all too well what he wanted to say.

 

“We still have the castle ship....” Coran mumbled, but everyone knew it was no proper consolation.

 

“Allura, what was that thing that destroyed Voltron?” Pidge asked, but all the altean princess could do was shrug.

 

“It’s.. I don’t really know how to put it… The creature was born of Haggar’s experiment gone wrong. It combines both Zarkon and Haggar, but it has a separate consciousness, it claims to be a separate person.”

 

Allura shielded to her teammates the events of the previous day, trying to be as precise as possible but failing due to inability to describe what the quintessence fusion was. Dead silence was her answer.

 

“So… They know and remember everything that Zarkon and Haggar remember and they have a virtually indestructible quintessence body?” Pidge asked finally. Allura sighed, unable to offer any consolation.

 

“Princess, when the Elders spoke to you at the Oriande, did they reveal something to you that might help us in our fight?” Lotor asked.

 

“There was no knowledge of that kind in the Oriande...” Allura answered quietly. “This is… this is a perversion… a distortion of the very nature of quintessence.”

 

Lotor nodded.

 

“The idea behind is is so twisted that no altean alchemist has ever tried it, but I think I know what that was. While I was studying Honerva’s notes, I came across several mentions of what could be a an idea of what we say earlier today, Haggar must have stolen the idea. What she performed is not originally intended to revive the dead. It is a ritual suicide, reserved for the direst circumstances. The aim is to kill yourself when the enemies are already approaching and there is no other escape, but simultaneously release an impossible amount of energy that would burn all the foes in a galaxy-wide radius. The light rays created a barrier that was supposed to keep that energy inside and redirect it into Zarkon to return him to life - do not ask me how she intended to modify the wavelength into something that would benefit him rather than burn his body. I also have no idea why they fused into one being - and how that was even possible to begin with - but I know one thing: this fusion is an abomination. It violates the rules of the nature, it can not be let roam this reality!”

 

“Except we cannot do anything about it without Voltron!” Pidge countered. “And why do we even trust his opinion on that? How could Honerva know things about quintessence that are not even stored in the Oriande?”

 

“My mother was an exceptional scientist...” Lotor’s voice sounded dangerous, but Allura interrupted him.

 

“What Lotor says seems very plausible to me, Pidge, and we have no better explanation anyway. What we need to think about is how we can defeat this creature.”

 

“Their single-minded focus and obstinacy will be their demise anyway,” Lotor grinned. “I always knew it would, but now that they are combined together and amplifying each other’s negative traits, we don’t even have to do anything - just sit back and watch them fall.”

 

“You cannot seriously suggest...”

 

“I think I know where the fusion will be headed once it is done grieving its loss. Haggar was always the driving force behind their mutual actions and Zarkon was only providing ways for her to achieve her goals most of the time. Of course, her actions benefited them both; now I expect the same pattern to continue. During the battle, the creature relied heavily on Zarkon’s fighting skill and rage, that's why it let itself be overflown by his grief over the Lion and let us slip. However, soon, Haggar will resurface, the creature will once again regain its combined mind and likely pursue her goals. And her goal will be unambiguous: Oriande.”

 

“Oriande?” Allura gasped. “But… but it only lets the worthy ones inside?”

 

“Yes, but, on the other hand, its guardians never met anything like the creature we are dealing with. There is a chance that the fusion will break the barriers and get inside. Then, our universe is doomed - with the knowledge from Oriande and Haggar’s alchemist skills, they will never need any physical devices to assist them: neither Voltron nor the trans-reality comet. They will become indestructible, omnipotent and probably able to teleport themselves at any distances...”

 

“Okay, we get it!” Lance sighed. “They will become the literal devil.”

 

“But we do have a chance,” Lotor went on. “And it lies where the fusion least expects it. I saw them long enough to know their weaknesses well. They enjoy each other’s company above everything else in the world. They encourage each other in a way no one else does. They show off for each other. Now imagine them being together constantly, and not just present in one room, but interwired, melted into one another to the extent that they consider themselves a single entity. What would this entity be like? What will they feel like now that there is nothing separating them, no barriers and burdens, only perfectly synchronised thoughts and aims? The fusion has been beyond happy to simply exist and braid its hair even before it had a chance to act properly, and I bet it will be ecstatic to see what it can do. It will push itself further and further until even it over-stretches itself and overlooks a crucial opportunity. And that is exactly when we shall strike!”

 

He looked at Allura and answered her smile.

 

“So where do you suggest we go next, Lotor?”

 

“We are going back to Oriande!”

**Author's Note:**

> The fusion idea and the "don't hurt me"-line belong to the creators of Steven Universe, I am merely using them as an inspiration.


End file.
